I wish to make a few things clear concerning higher magic. Of course, these points are from my perspective and I respect that you may view things differently.

Simply put, Higher Magic is not about more elaborate rituals, it is the ability to cause events by the power of your thoughts alone, or with some magic, as simply and with as few tools as possible.

Imagine a very accomplished musician. At some point in her/his training, a link between a part of the brain and what the body was able to accomplish took place, and the results were a more fluid expression of music. With practice and usually great effort, this process continued until the musician's mind, body and spirit became one and the same.

It is very much the same way with magic. With training designed to develop skills and knowledge, practitioners can learn to accomplish various feats of higher magic.

How far any particular person can go depends on all the same issues that regulate every other part of our lives. We are simply not created equal and what a boring world it would be it we were.

Like everything else, we will all rise to the level of our own incompetence. Those who grow the most, thoughtfully continue to push their envelope.

That was very well put. Without all the complex explanations of the sephira and the hermetic tree of life and how it works. I won't go into it but I felt as if the subjects needed to be brought up for aspiring magicians

To some extent I very much agree with this. Indeed, I posted a similar thread in a forum within the coven I help organize "Higher Magicks" heh.

There were some interesting points and counter points.

To sum it up, the traditional definition of High Magick is two-fold. High Magick is that magick which utilizes ceremony to accomplish its aims, and in this regard the term is most frequently used to refer to those ceremonies born of the Western Mystery Traditions. The other half of the coin is that High Magick, traditionally, is intended to seek wisdom, enlightenment, self awareness, and so forth. It is intended to bring one closer to true awareness and oneness, with the Divine, the concept of True Will, or any myriad other thoughts and ideals.

In exploring such things in depth, I definitely came to a similar conclusion that the practice is, at its core, in seeking to attune one's mind, body, and spirit in much the same way that a professional musician, martial artist, or any other such practitioner of the arts might seek oneness within themselves. And through this, it seemed that the eventual conclusion was to shed elaborate rituals and practices, as a higher state of "oneness" would no longer necessitate such gestures.

However, a practitioner within my coven who has been at this for much longer than I and whom never fails to impress me with his wisdom upon such subjects pointed out that even if one achieves such perfect harmony in mind, body, and spirit, the ceremony and ritual of magic is not remotely a hindrance. The process of such things, even when we feel they are not necessary, attunes us to the process of any magical undertaking in a way that spontaneous methods cannot achieve.

Consider the rituals of fasting and cleansing one's self before the actual magical undertaking. Preparing one's self for one's Work allows you to only slip deeper into that harmony that you seek to achieve.

Consider then the sacred space, with perhaps an altar according to your tradition, perhaps some sort of circle upon the ground for evocation or other purposes, and the other instruments of the craft. This is a place of comfort. A place whose purpose IS the magical working you are seeking to undertake. Preparing this sacred space, just as preparing yourself, can only bring you deeper into the harmony that you seek.

And so then when you begin your actually begin your workings, you are already deeply in the state you would otherwise have to spontaneously seek to achieve - or far more deeply into such a state of harmony than you might otherwise achieve if you had not just spent time fully locking away all other thoughts, concerns, and happenings of life to fully immerse yourself within your spirituality and your practice. And as you have achieved this deeper state, so too can your actual workings be more focused if you go through ceremony and ritual within the actual intended Work itself. For if all other ceremony before this only brought you to greater harmony, then ceremony that brings you fully committed to the task at hand can only bring about greater results.

And so on, and so forth.

Ritual and ceremony, at the heart of the traditional definition of High Magic, might well be forsaken as we seek the inner spirituality and the truths of magic, but if we keep them close within our practices - whether they be the ritual and ceremony dictated to us by tradition, or those we create and adapt to our own methods - they can enhance whatever it is we do. They are not only the welcome tools and hallmark of the beginner, but the tools of the focused, harmonious mind as well.